Marketing Benifits

Unlike manufacturing operations, services processes are denied the luxury of stockpiling service products before they can be consumed, nor do they have detailed knowledge of actual upcoming demand. Thus, the characteristics of services negate the opportunity to plan for the service performance, and require the service to prepare for every eventuality, ordering materials arbitrarily, hiring staff, paying for variable costs such as lighting and heating, and often storing materials to await final purchase. The ability to accurately predict future individual purchases would amend these drawbacks, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, increasing customer satisfaction and ultimately, increasing customer loyalty. Thus, the move towards customer relationship management (CRM) should result in an escalating pattern of increased loyalty, further increasing customer participation, allowing better preparation for each customer, which in turn, increases customer loyalty.

This paper looks at the issue of perishability, what it is and how it affects service efficiency, and discusses ways to offset the difficulties faced by services marketers by extending the demand time horizon to allow adequate planning and preparation. Thus, forecasting techniques will be highlighted to shine a light on medium-to-long-term demand patterns. Finally, the paper will undertake a detailed investigation into a relatively new area of marketing, CRM, and ask the question whether CRM may offer the service provider with an accurate and timely means for planning demand.

2.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In compiling information for the group carried out secondary research. This secondary research essentially involved searching through services textbooks to find relevant information and through journal articles via databases such as Business Source Premier and Emerald Fulltext.

3.0 LIMITATIONS

* As the research topic involves proposing a new framework for services marketing, there was no previous path to traverse, thus, literature from operations, marketing, and e-commerce were explored.

* The reviewers' did not have adequate time in which to carry out empirical work to support the proposals made in the paper however the group would strongly recommend future empirical research to be carried out relating to this new topic.

* Given the nature of the paper, space constraints limited the amount of detail the researchers could devote to particular issues in the topic.

4.0 NATURE OF SERVICE CAPACITY

Business-to-consumer services operate at the coalface of the supply chain, creating services in real-time for a variety of different consumers. This gives rise to 5 characteristics pertaining to services, intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, perishability, and a lack of ownership (Fisk, Grove & John, 2000; Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003; Palmer, 2001). All these characteristics are interconnected and derived from the fact that a service is essentially a performance by the services provider and an experience to the consumer (Fisk, Grove & John 2000).